To Find What Was Lost
by BumbleTHOT
Summary: (Set in the Animated verse) This is my spicy hot take on who Bumblebee's creators are. Is this canon? Only in my mind. There are parts of the IDW comics in this fic as well but it's mostly the dynamic of Tailgate, Cyclonus, and Whirl that is important.
1. Chapter 1

Shrieks of terror rang out, melting with the sounds of explosions. Energon was everywhere, a sickening purple hue painted the frames that decorated the neutral colony. Buildings crumpled under the massive fire attack from the multitude of Seekers. A blue and white colored minibot scrambled out from under a collapsing building clutching a bundle close to his chassis. The minibot quickly ran through the burning streets trying to find a safe place for himself and his small bundle. This was bad, really bad, they chose this colony because of its remoteness from the war but it would seem like that didn't matter. Decepticons were raining pit fire on everything in sight.

The minibot's optics darted around desperately looking for a place to hid, he couldn't let it end like this. His creation was only sparked twelve cycles ago, he wouldn't let his spark be extinguished here. The small bot was fast but it wouldn't be enough to escape the collapsing buildings that were quickly increasing in number around him. He knew he couldn't use his frame to protect the small sparkling, he would just end up doing more harm than good. He surveyed the surrounding areas for somewhere he could hide his sparkling and hopefully divert attention from that area with his bright armor. He sprinted over to one of the many collapsed buildings and cleared out a small alcove for the sparkling and placed the small bot inside.

The minibot leaned down and whispered to the sparkling "Stay safe Yellowjacket, I'll come find you when this is over. I love you sweet spark." The mech covered the entrance with a large slab of metal to protect the little bot. The minibot proceeded to peer around while he got up to make sure no other bot was watching him. He quickly saved his coordinates, transformed into his vehicle mode and speed off. The constant sound of gun fire somehow picked up in frequency. He prayed to Primus that his sparkling would be safe. He stopped to take cover under one of the few standing buildings. He had been separated from Cyclonus and Whirl shortly after the attack began. He had no idea if they were still online or not. Suddenly the sound of metal bending and cement cracking brought him out of his worrying. He now had a whole new situation to be concerned with.

"Slag" was all Tailgate was able to mutter before being knock into a forced stasis.

The sound of rubble being tossed and muffled talking is what greeted Tailgate as he slowly onlined his optics. Warning signs fluttered across his hud, flashing angrily at him. He was low on Energon, oil, and his frame was dented and bent in more ways than he could count. Finally, the large slate of metal that was covering most his chassis was thrown off of him and he was greeted with blinding bright light and the faceplates of multiple autobots.

"Oh good, you're online!" exclaimed a large blue mech. Tailgate assumed he was the one who threw the metal scrap off of his frame. He looked to be a very energetic and optimistic bot.

Tailgate groaned at the bot, normally he wouldn't be bother by that personality, that would be hypocritical of him, but he just survived a being smashed by rubble and wasn't in the mood.

Tailgate made his was to get up "How long have I been-"

"Don't you dare try and get up, bot! You are in critical condition and I don't want you heading to the well of sparks on my watch!" chastised, what he assumed was, a medicbot. Their faceplates changed from a stern expression to that of softer variety. "You just made it through a Decepticon raid, just rest up and we'll get you fixed up and back on Cybertron, ok?"

At this point, Tailgate was in too much pain to care as his processor was about to overload with pain. He fell into a state of recharging with drifting thoughts of Cyclonus, Whirl, and Yellowjacket.

Bumblebee woke up with a start. Strange images of a white and blue mech had filled his processor during the whole sequence and it wasn't the first time. It was a weird occurrence that happened every couple solar cycles for as long as he has functioned. It always brought questions that would never be answered so he learned to always push it down and out of his main thought process. As he jumped off of his berth, he remembered that today Ninja Gladiator 2 was being released! Struggling to contain his excitement about the continuation of his favorite game he made his way out of his room and into the main area of the plant.

He and Sari planned on buying it today, he just needed to wait for her to wake up and then they could go. Bumblebee quickly checked his internal storage and noticed he was a little low on fuel. Walking over to their fuel storage, Bumblebee grabbed himself something to drink, he didn't want to be on empty when they got to the store. His level of excitement had died down a bit as he sat down on the stone couch in front of the tv. _'Well as long as I'm waiting for Sari, it wouldn't hurt to watch some tv'_ Bumblebee thought to himself as he grabbed the remote and turned it on. The screen Illuminated with a scene that surprised the youngling. In the corner in bright red and white text read 'Breaking News.' The camera was currently focused on a large space ship that had crashed in a forest outside of Detroit. Bumblebee suddenly got nervous, that looked like a ship from Cybertron. Were there Autobots on board. If so, were they ok? What if it was actually Decepticons? They were already having a hard-enough time as it was with the current 'Cons here on Earth. He should probably let Optimus know about this.

"Hey uh Bossbot, we have a situation." Bumblebee commed.

"What is it Bumblebee?" Optimus replied, making his way into the main room.

Bumblebee turned around from his position on the couch and pointed to the tv, "Does this happen to look familiar to you?"

Optimus shutter his optics in surprise, that was definitely a Cybertronian ship, but what was it doing here on Earth and on fire? He quickly commed the other Autobots "Autobots, we have a situation in the forest near Detroit, prepare to roll out and for a possible battle."

Looks like that game will have to wait.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Tailgate onlined his systems he was in a medic room on Cybertron. How long had he been offline? What hit him- Cyclonus, Whirl, and Yellowjacket! He had to go find them! Tailgate struggled to get off of the berth but his systems were still filled with static from the incident. He didn't care if he fell though, he needed to find his family, they were more important right now. Hearing the commotion that was emanating from the room, a medic femme barged in.

"Hey, it took me twelve cycles to get you back in functioning order, don't you dare mess up my hard work! Get back on that berth!" she shouted. The stood up to her full height and reset her vocalizer into her servo, "Sorry but it was very touch and go for a while with you, your systems were horribly damaged. Anyway, my designation is RedAlert, from the data we collected, it is safe to assume you are Tailgate correct?"

Tailgate nodded, slightly nervous around this femme. Not that she had scary features, it was because of she said "data we collected." How they found out his designation was concerning; did they go through his data banks? No, if they did, he would be under arrest by now, or not even online. Fraternizing with the enemy wasn't usually taken very well.

Tailgate reset his vocalizer, "How did you find out my designation if I may ask?"

The femme smiled, "Don't worry, we didn't go through your data banks, you had an I.D. card on your frame." She continued softly while shaking her helm, "mechs and their constant fear of probing."

Tailgate's intakes stuttered and spirted. Of course they crashed, how could they not have? That minor miscalculation of the planet's atmosphere cost them their ship and probably a lot of supplies. Well no time for moping, he needed to get Cyclonus and Whirl off of this ship so they could start their search! Whirl started to stir next to him, muttering a string of curses and complaining about his aching processor. Well that's one half of what he was looking for. Tailgate scanned the area until his optics landed on Cyclonus' frame. Tailgate jumped up and ran over to his mate and began to shake his frame.

"Cyclonus get up! We're here!" Tailgate exclaimed. He was excited to finally find their creation.

It had been so many stellar cycles and now they were here, almost a complete family again! Tailgate was struggling to contain his excitement.

Cyclonus onlined his optics and spoke, "I realize your excited but we just crashed, give me a few nanokliks to get up."

Tailgate nearly shouted, "I can't help that I'm excited, we're so close Cy! Just think, we'll be a family with our creation in a matter of solar cycles!"

"I know, you said that multiple times before we arrived." Cyclonus replied as he got up. "Well, in any case, we should get off of this ship and grab some supplies while we are at it."

Whirl darted up, "I think we should grab as much energon as we can, who knows if there is any on this planet!"

"We should also grab some of the medical supplies, never know when we'll need it." Tailgate chimed.

"Tailgate, you grab the medical supplies, Whirl and I will grab as much energon as we can carry. We'll meet you outside the ship, just ping your coordinates when your pedes touch the dirt."

Tailgate did a little salute and replied "Alright, I'm on it!" He raced down to the small medbay to grab the supplies.

As Tailgate was collecting the med kits and other important items, he thought back to how they managed to get here. Within an orbital cycle, they managed to discover that they all made it out of that Decepticon attack, meet up, hijack a ship, fake their deaths with that ship by crashing in the outskirts of New Kaon, hijack another ship to fly across the galaxy, and then crash that ship as well. They also managed to change Cyclonus' armor back to how it was before he joined the Decepticons! They might not be able to go back to Cybertron but they now had the chance for something greater, reconnecting with their creation!

Checking over the supplies he grabbed one last time, Tailgate made his way out of the burning ship. Just as Cyclonus asked, as soon as Tailgate's pedes hit the ground, he pinged his location to Cyclonus and Whirl. Shortly after, Cyclonus and Whirl appeared out of the ship with servos full of energon cubes. A slowly encroaching sound of sirens was picking up from west of their location.

"What's that noise?" Whirl blurted out.

Cyclonus swiveled his helm in the direction of the sirens "I have no idea, but I don't think I would like to find out. We should move on out."

Whirl and Tailgate nodded. The three began to run south of the ship so they could avoid their potential pursuers. They didn't want to go in the complete opposite of the sirens though. Whatever was producing the sound may have come from a populated area, which would be a good place to start their search.


End file.
